Although not particularly heavy on plot, Return to Arms picks up where Champions of Norrath left off, with the rather tasty looking elf Firiona Vie enlisting the help of your character to save Norrath from the possibility of Innoruuk's resurrection, which a bunch of his cronies are trying to set into motion. Snowblind Studios have seen fit to give the player the opportunity to support either the good or evil side of Norrath, increasing the replayability of the quests (which you inevitably do in the online component), which we believe is a good move.
If you've played any one of the Action-RPGs that have been released on Snowblind Studio's engine (Dark Alliance, Dark Alliance II, The Bard's Tale, Champions of Norrath), then you should know what to expect with Return to Arms – lots of dungeon crawling, countless enemies, and a hell of a lot of mashing on the X button. Select a character class from one of seven (each of which cater to a different playing style), including the new Var Shir Berserker and the Iksar Shaman - after the requisite naming process you'll be assigned a quest and sent to the first area of the game. Instead of offering one large world, Return to Arms' world is split into several disjointed planes, each of which has its own unique look and feel (though some are rather generic RPG locations, such as the lava level, the sky level, and the underwater bit for example). This is somewhat handy when playing multiplayer, as transport time from the hub to the specific area you wish to tackle is shortened significantly.
There is plenty of variety in the class types in Return to Arms, though beginners may find it more rewarding to pick a close combat character to begin with, as distance combat/magic users are quite severely disadvantaged at the start of the game, though things balance themselves out as these characters develop. Return to Arms employs a skill tree system similar to that of Diablo II, giving players a higher degree of freedom to customize their characters as they wish. However, this variety in skills cannot shake the fact that this is a dungeon crawling hack and slash game at heart - the fifth such game on this engine in a little over three years, making the game's formula seem tired and dated, leading more experienced gamers to become bored quite quickly. Another major pain is that characters are stored serverside – while that eliminates cheating (one of the major problems which plagued Champions of Norrath), it stops you from using your offline character online, eliminating the seamless integration of online play which many liked about Champions of Norrath. Unfortunately, it's a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation. The last major complaint is that the weapon drops in the game, while improved from the previous game, are still a little questionable – you can play for hours without getting any sort of decent drop, and then get a bunch of decent weapon drops in a row in a short period of time.
Blocking, something you'll be doing a lot of...
Like its fully fledged MMORPG brothers, Return to Arms greatest strength is found in its longevity. A new side quest system has been included which gives you special challenges in areas you have previously visited – complete the challenge and get rewarded with powerful new weapons, better stats, or maps to use in the online mode. There is also a survival-type mode which is handy for leveling up characters or competing with friends in PvP combat. Teaming up with a few friends (over LAN or Internet, with keyboard/headset support) will reduce the speed at which the boredom factor of Return to Arms sets in, as dungeon crawlers are always more fun and sometimes more challenging with a few friends. Throw in multiple difficulty levels and a character level limit of 80, and you'll see that there is some serious long term value in Return to Arms, provided you can tolerate having played the same game for the last three years.
Great three years ago, a little dated now...
The engine which powers Return to Arms was a poster boy of graphical power for the Playstation 2 upon the launch of Dark Alliance in 2001. Three years later, the engine is still competent, but several aspects have a rather dated look to them – namely special effects such as lighting, shadows and particle effects. The different levels themselves actually look improved, thanks to better texturing. However, some tricks have been used to maintain the solid visuals of the game – mainly the panned-out camera. When the camera zooms in, get ready for some muddy looking character models (particularly with NPCs). The game's framerate is decent, but suffers severely whenever a meaningful amount of enemies are on screen. Sometimes framerate drops can happen out of the blue, with considerable annoyance, but these instances are few and far between. Return to Arms is a real let down in the aural department, lacking any sort of meaningful soundtrack, using stock standard sound effects, and providing appalling voice acting. Return to Arms does not provide a 60Hz display mode or any meaningful type of surround sound.
While Return to Arms is certainly an improvement over Champions of Norrath, it's not really enough of an improvement to satisfy the tastes of the discerning role playing gamer. The game does very little to set itself apart from other games that have used the same engine – it feels like we've all been playing the same game since the release of Dark Alliance in late 2001. However, if you really enjoyed Champions of Norrath, and just need more of the same, Return to Arms should certainly quench your thirst for multiplayer dungeon crawling action.
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